When I was in Cinque Terre I picked up a bottle of their local wine, Sciacchetra (pronounced Sha-Keh-Trah) to bring home.

Sciacchetra is a dessert wine made from Bosco grapes that are allowed to dry in the sun until they are almost raisins before being crushed to make the wine.

Apparently this wine was so coveted in the past that ancient roman vases and other art work have references to Sciacchetra on them.  This is pretty impressive considering the wine comes from the tiny little fishing villages of Cinque Terre that until modern times were only accessible by boat.

The wine is a dark honey color and very sweet.  Surprisingly, it was actually a little too sweet for me.

I don’t know if I was influenced by the honey color or what, but it tasted very strongly of honey.  Almost like a regular white wine with lots of honey dissolved into it.

Overall, the Sciacchetra was a nice little drink to have for dessert, but I wish I had ordered it when I was in Cinque Terre instead of waiting until I got home.  Something tells me it would have tasted even better sitting next to the water after a long hike!